She was not on the list.
SCOTT, Joan Patricia (nee LaCour) Aged 91, passed away on June 19, 2012, in Woodland Hills, California, after a lengthy illness. Born into an East Coast vaudeville family on May 21, 1921, Ms. Scott and her twin sister, Jean, as young girls appeared on stage as the "LaCour Sisters." In Hollywood in the late 1940s, Ms. Scott was active in the organizational struggles between several radio, film and television writers' unions which eventually merged to form the Writers' Guild of America, West. In 1955, she married screenwriter and Academy Award-nominated producer Adrian Scott, one of the "Hollywood Ten" who in 1947 had been sentenced to prison for their refusal to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and subsequently blacklisted by the film industry. Ms. Scott was also blacklisted, and in 1957 the couple moved to England, where Mr. Scott worked for the Rank film production organization. Upon their return to the United States in 1968, Ms. Scott initially "fronted" for her husband under the pseudonym Joanne Court. She then began to write scripts herself under that name and, once the blacklist ended, her own name. Her credits include episodes of "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Lassie," "Surfside 6," "Ripcord," "Pursuit," "The Adventures of McGraw," "The Waltons," and the two-part Disney production of "The Glorious Rebel," a fictionalized treatment of the life of Beethoven. Passionate in her determination that the injustices of the blacklist era not be forgotten, Ms. Scott in her later years became a significant resource for journalists, historians and filmmakers documenting that era. She is survived by her sister Jean LaCour, of Topanga, CA, and Joan and Adrian Scott's nephew, Doug Scott and his family in Ann Arbor, MI.
With Adrian Scott unemployable because of the blacklist, LaCour began to seek work, initially as his front. She took his work to story conferences, managed revisions, and took notes so that he could rewrite at home. She wrote under a pseudonym, Joanne Court. These were economically difficult years for the couple, although Joan credited them with teaching her how to be a writer.
But in the early 1950s, while she was employed as executive secretary of the Television Writers of America union, a Hollywood columnist wrote an attack piece alleging that Scott was part of a plot to get Communist propaganda into TV scripts. She was blacklisted and called to testify before the House committee investigating subversives in the movie and television industries.
Unlike other blacklisted writers and producers, the Scotts could not seek work in Europe or Mexico. For Joan and Adrian Scott, caring for their mentally ill adopted son meant that relocation to Europe was not possible. As Adrian wrote in a letter to a friend, "The problem [to taking a job in France] was Mike – our Mike. You may remember that he was on his way to being a bona fide delinquent during the period we lived in Hollywood. There were thefts, endless hooky playing, skirmishes with the police and finally a court appearance. In the past two years all this has stopped . . . . By taking him abroad, Joan and I felt convinced that we would undo all the good work that has been done so far.
Producer Hannah Weinstein, who had fled Hollywood when the blacklist began, was hiring blacklisted writers for work with her new production company, Sapphire Films, in England. Adrian wrote a letter to Weinstein, "You will not accuse me of nepotism, I know, if I recommend my wife, Joan, who though new to TV has just cracked through with some excellent scripts."
Over the next few years, the Scotts contributed more than a dozen scripts to Sapphire Productions' The Adventures of Robin Hood and Lancelot.
LaCour died at the age of 91, in Woodland, California, on June 19, 2012.
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